Just a handful of states have yet to hold their primary elections this year, and on Tuesday, three more states will see voters head to the polls to finalize their ballots for November: Alaska, Florida and Wyoming. While the sole race that we track in the Cowboy State (the at-large House seat currently held by Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman) isn't competitive, there are a few heated races worth watching in Florida and Alaska that could give us a glimpse into how the general election might shake out this fall.
In the Sunshine State, Republican Sen. Rick Scott has a target on his back. After winning his 2018 election to the Senate by less than half a percentage point, and with a dismal 35 percent approval rating in a recent poll, it's no surprise the former governor is seen as vulnerable. He's facing two GOP challengers in the primary — Keith Gross, an attorney, and John Columbus, an actor. Neither Gross nor Columbus is likely to best Scott in the Republican primary; for starters, they've each raised a fraction of his war chest. And Scott clinched former president Donald Trump's endorsement early in the election cycle. However, the winner of the Democratic primary could end up thwarting Scott's dreams of a second term.
Four candidates are running in the Democratic primary, though the front-runner is former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who has essentially been coronated by the Democratic Party after they courted her to run. She has a war chest more than 10 times the size of the next highest-raising Democrat — business owner Stanley Campbell (who contributed almost all of the $1.1 million he's raised to his own campaign) — and a rare primary endorsement from President Joe Biden. Democrats are hoping having a Latina (Mucarsel-Powell is Ecuadorian American) as their Senate nominee for the first time will help woo voters in this increasingly diverse state, and are banking on Mucarsel-Powell's record of winning over swing voters: She was elected to the House by ousting a two-term Republican incumbent, though she lost reelection in 2020.
This is one of the few Senate seats that is even marginally vulnerable for Republicans, and with the balance of power in Congress on the line this election, Democrats will certainly be devoting lots of attention (and cash) to this race. Polls show Scott still leading Mucarsel-Powell in a theoretical matchup, but it seems to be tightening up, so we'll have our eyes on how voters feel about the matchup once the ticket is finalized.
Over in the 1st District, Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz, who played a pivotal role in ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is now having to fend off a challenger in the GOP primary as part of the former speaker's revenge tour. Team McCarthy helped coax Navy veteran and business consultant Aaron Dimmock into the race, and Dimmock got McCarthy's endorsement, but it looks like Gaetz is holding strong. He has a substantial fundraising advantage (having raised $5.7 million to Dimmock's roughly $350,000) as well as Trump's endorsement. Despite over $3 million in outside spending from a McCarthy-linked PAC backing Dimmock or opposing Gaetz, the sole poll in this race gave Gaetz a 47-point lead. Granted, it was an internal Gaetz campaign poll, but it signals that McCarthy's attempt to foil one of the Republicans he most despises may amount to little more than an irritation as Gaetz cruises his way to a fifth term in office.
Elsewhere in the Sunshine State, three members of the far-right Freedom Caucus are up for reelection, but only one is at any risk of being unseated. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who represents the 13th District around Clearwater on the Gulf Coast, is running unopposed in her primary, but will be squaring off this fall against the winner of Tuesday's Democratic primary. There's no polling in that race, but the front-runner looks like former Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority communications director Whitney Fox, who has raised more than twice as much money as any other Democrat and has racked up endorsements from seven sitting members of Congress. Though this district leans red, it's one that Trump won by less than 7 points in 2020 and could be a pickup opportunity for Democrats with the right candidate.
It's a similar story in the 27th District, which includes downtown Miami and suburbs to the south. Two-term Republican Rep. Maria Salazar will face off against one of two Democrats: Lucia Baez-Geller, a Miami-Dade School Board member, and Mike Davey, the former mayor of Key Biscayne, are fairly evenly matched ideologically and financially, but Baez-Geller may have an edge as a Latina in a district with a large Hispanic population. Though the region is pretty evenly divided politically (Trump won this district by less than 1 point in 2020), incumbency and a healthy war chest give Salazar an edge, so if Democrats hope to target this as a seat to flip, they'll need to put forward a very strong nominee.
Races to watch: U.S. HousePolls close: 12 a.m. Eastern
Alaska is holding a nonpartisan primary for its at-large House seat, with the top four vote-getters winning a spot on the ballot for the ranked-choice general election in November. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is facing 11 challengers in her bid for reelection, including four Republicans and one Democrat (the others are nonpartisan or represent minor parties). To refresh your memory, Peltola, the state's first Alaska Native Representative, was elected in a special election in 2022. Peltola beat two Republicans on the ranked-choice ballot: former Gov. and one-time vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and businessman Nick Begich, who was eliminated after the first round of ballot counting. It was the first time the state had used the new ranked ballot system, which was approved by a special ballot initiative in 2020 (some Alaskans are now trying to repeal it).
This year, Begich is back and is polling competitively with Peltola, with some recent polls showing the two neck-and-neck, despite Peltola having a huge fundraising advantage. Begich has raised just under $1 million, while Peltola has raised more than $7.5 million, according to FEC filings. But another prominent Republican is in the mix too: Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom has raised nearly as much as Begich and seems to be the party's preferred candidate, garnering endorsements from Trump and other Republican bigwigs. It is practically a given at this point that all three will ascend to the general ticket, but just how Tuesday's results shake out may have a big impact on which candidate prevails in November.
With this understanding, a super PAC with ties to House Democrats has spent nearly $1 million on ads attacking the abortion rights stances of three GOP candidates: Begich, Dahlstrom and Gerald Heikes, an underfunded perennial candidate. The strategy seems to be to raise the profile of these candidates among conservative voters in hopes they'll all wind up on the November ballot alongside Peltola, leaving her as the only option for left-leaning and moderate voters. In 2022, 29 percent of voters who ranked Begich as their first choice voted for Peltola as their second choice, while 21 percent didn't make a second choice pick at all.
This vote splitting and drop-off after the first round could favor Peltola if there are once again multiple right-wing candidates for voters to choose from in November. But Begich has said that if Dahlstrom finishes ahead of him in the primary, he'll drop out of the race, leaving her to take on Peltola. In a state that Trump won by 10 percentage points in 2020, Peltola was always going to be one of the most vulnerable incumbents this November, and the results of this primary could ultimately mean the difference between winning and losing for the congresswoman.
